Yeltsin Averts Another Impeachment Showdown

MOSCOW — Parliamentary leaders voted on Monday to delay indefinitely a vote on the impeachment of President Boris Yeltsin, stepping back from a showdown between the Kremlin and the parliament.

But the postponement was only half a victory for Yeltsin, who recently said that he would prefer to have the issue removed from the political agenda once and for all, preferably by its defeat in the opposition-dominated lower house of parliament.

The vote, which had been set for Thursday, had added suspense to a political debate that in the past month has been electrified by the war in the Balkans, a series of ugly sex-and-corruption scandals and the Kremlin's behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

In a television address Saturday, Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov urged parliament not to take up the impeachment issue which he said was groundless and counterproductive.

"Such political games are irresponsible and dangerous," he said.

"They may not only rock society but provoke a grave political crisis."

Primakov and his government became targets in the crossfire between Yeltsin and the opposition as the Kremlin fanned speculation that the president might fire the prime minister, and then go on to disband parliament.

None of this has happened but at a public meeting Friday, Yeltsin said that Primakov's hold on his job was not guaranteed.

The next day, Primakov gave his caustic reply. "I am not clinging to or holding on to my chair of prime minister, especially since a time frame for my work is being set," he said.

"Today I am needed, and tomorrow we'll see," Primakov said.

The opposition-dominated lower house voted last year to investigate five articles of impeachment against Yeltsin, ranging from the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union to the "genocide" of the Russian people to the waging of an illegal war in the breakaway region of Chechnya.

Of these five charges, the one about the war in Chechnya was considered the most likely to succeed because it would attract votes not only from Yeltin's hard-core left-wing opposition, but also from liberal members of Parliament.

But even so, head-counts were putting the total a few votes shy of 300, the margin required in the 450-seat chamber to send the impeachment proceedings on their tortuous route.

Under the Russian Constitution, an impeachment vote must be upheld first by the Russian Supreme Court, then by the Constitutional Court, and finally confirmed by the parliament's upper house, the Federation Council.

The chances of clearing these hurdles before Yeltsin's term ends in the summer of 2000 are exceedingly small.

But a vote to impeach would prevent him from disbanding parliament, which the constitution forbids him from doing once a vote to impeach has been taken.